he cold
breath of alien charity. Some, at threescore, are driven forth from a
life of indulgence and inactivity, to earn their daily bread. Young
and rising tradesmen, who had had the misfortune to inherit from a
relative or a patron but a few shares, or even a single one, saw
themselves at once precipitated into bankruptcy. One case, for which
we can personally vouch, is beyond measure distressing: a gentleman of
good fortune dying, had bequeathed to each of a large family of
daughters a handsome provision; shortly before the bursting of the
fearful bubble, the mother also died, dividing by will her own fortune
among the young ladies, and leaving to each one a few shares in the
Romantic Valley Brewery. The transference of these shares to the
several children made the whole of them liable to the extent of their
entire property; and the whole six unfortunates were actually beggared
to the last farthing, and cast upon the world to shift as they might.
To detail the domestic desolation caused by this iniquitous affair,
would require the space of a large volume. It has wrought nothing but
wretchedness and ruin to those to whom it promised unexampled
prosperity, and it is yet working still more--nor is it likely to
stop, for aught that we can see, so long as it presents a mark for
legal cupidity. All that could be got for the creditors has been
extorted long ago from the wealthier portion of the victims; but the
loans are not yet all liquidated, and the claim yet remaining
unsatisfied, is now the pretext under which the lawyers are sucking
the life-blood from the hard-working and struggling class of
shareholders, who, while industriously striving for a respectable
position, are considered worth crushing for the sake of the costs,
though they will never yield a penny towards the debt.

Besides the persons who have the settlement of affairs in their hands,
the original concocters of the company are the only persons who have
profited from its operations. They indeed ride gloriously aloft above
the ruin they have wrought. The process by which they have managed to
extract a lordly independence for themselves, from a scheme which has
resulted in the destitution and misery of every other participator, is
a mystery we do not pretend to fathom in this case--though it is one
of by no means unusual occurrence in connection with bubble-companies
of all sorts.

THE OSTRICH.

For the following particulars relative to the habit